How We Translated a Book – Without Any Words

What’s It About?

Animals at the Zoo isn’t your typical picture book. There are no written sentences, no text-filled pages. Instead, there are illustrations, characters and sounds. A child moves a digital pen over the images – and the book starts talking.

Over 1,400 audio snippets. Every character has something to say. Some sing. Some get grumpy. Some rhyme. And all of that had to be translated. In a way that sounds natural in Croatian – cheerful, playful, funny and, of course, clear.

Although there are no traditional sentences, language is everywhere in this book, and in its most creative and playful form.

That’s what made this project so special for us – colorful, lively and a perfect reminder that translation is never boring.

Open spread of the interactive children’s book showing colorful illustrations and characters used with a digital pen.

About the Client

Singa is a company that distributes educational and interactive content for children, including a series of products under the brand KUKU – Fun Learning. Their focus is on developing didactic tools that merge play with learning.

The Task

Singa approached us with a clear, yet far from simple, goal: to translate a book with no written words into Croatian.

That meant:

localizing the title and all character names (over fifty of them!)
keeping the spirit of the original: playfulness, rhyme, quirky lines
addressing the reader in second person singular (“you”) – as if the book were talking directly to the child
making sure everything sounds consistent and natural.

And all of it in a way that would make both kids and parents laugh, smile and learn new facts about the animal world.

Our Approach

We started with one rule: nothing in this book should ever sound boring. Translations for children have to be lively, fun and meaningful.

We began by mapping out all the characters and objects – their personalities, their tone of voice. Because every character has a rhythm, a color and a voice, and it’s the translator’s job to capture that and adapt every line accordingly.
Context is what turns an average translation into a good one – and a good one into a great one. That’s why we didn’t just translate “words from Excel.” We did what we love most – read between the lines, listened to the tone, studied the illustrations. When you know the whole story, you know how to retell it in another language.
Next, we localized the names – gatekeeper Gardner became Kovač, and director Purcell became Horvat.
One of the biggest challenges was rhymes and wordplay – what sounds great in English often doesn’t work in Croatian. That’s where our team stepped in – not just as translators, but as creative writers in another language. Sometimes we had to invent an entirely new joke, but one that fit seamlessly into the original style.
During editing, we corrected small errors, checked terminology, and polished the text stylistically – because what sounds good at first may not always be the best solution, especially when it comes to rhymes and playful language. Every line had to be clear – whether it was spoken by a parrot or a penguin.

So – What Did We Learn?

In translation, literal is never enough. That goes for technical manuals as well as for interactive children’s books.

It took a healthy dose of curiosity and a willingness to step into a child’s world to localize the text and make it engaging for the target audience.

This project reminded us once again that translation is a creative craft. It takes knowledge, a good ear, a feel for language and audience. And sometimes, a solid sense of humor, too.

P.S.

Think translation is just transferring meaning from one language to another? Ask Toby the snail how much work we put into making sure that everyone understands him. 🙂

Words From Our Client

“From the very beginning, it was clear that this project required more than just translation – it needed a real feel for language, children and context. Sinonim was the right partner for it. They captured the spirit of the book and brought it to life in Croatian with ease, creativity and great care. The result? The book sounds like it was originally written in Croatian – and kids love it!”

– Alen Filipušić, Country Director, Singa Croatia